Class and achievement - internal factors Flashcards
Internal factors
Factors within schools which influence the educational achievement of pupils such as the influence of interactions between pupils and teachers and inequalities between schools. They include: 1. Labelling 2. Streaming, setting and subcultures 3. Marketisation of education 4. Class identity
Labelling
Process of attaching meaning to individuals or groups
- these meanings are based on stereotypes about the person’s class, gender and ethnicity
Labelling - Beker
Beker - interviewed 60 high school teachers in Chicago.
- teachers have an image of what is an ‘ideal pupil’ and they judge pupils on how closely they fit into this ideal
- m/c pupils tended to be seen as closest to the image of an ‘ideal pupil’
- w/c were seen as badly behaved
Halo effect - even when m/c student misbehaves he/she will get away with it because of their m/c background.
However, studies by Hempel-Jorgensen show that teachers have different notions of an ideal pupil and is not always linked to class backgrounds e.g in a mainly w/c school where there was a lot of behavioural problems the 'ideal pupil' was seen as quiet + obedient.
Labelling - Rist
[US kindergatens]
Within 8 days of starting school, children were seated around tables in groups
- these groups were based on information the teacher had about their home background and appearance.
m/c children and those of neat appearance ‘tigers’ were seated at the front near the teacher (received the most attention + encouragement)
w/c children sat at the back and were given low level reading books ‘clowns’
Labelling - Dunne and Gazeley
[9 secondary schools in England] - found that teacher labelling leads to the underachievement of w/c students.
Teachers normalise the underachievement of w/c students, are unconcerned and feel they can’t do anything about it
- this is because teachers believed w/c students home background was a major factor in holding back their progress
- leads to different treatment of underachieving w/c (entered for foundation tier exams) and m/c (extra help) students,
Self-fullfilling prophecy
Predictions that come true simply because it was made
- Interactionalists argue that labelling of students by teachers can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
Rosenthal and Jacobsen
[carried out a study of labelling in a Californian primary school - covert study]
Told the teachers they had a test which would identify the students with the highest potential to succeed. However, the test were just standard IQ tests.
The students were tested and then R&J chose 20% of them at random - ‘spurters’
A year later, R&J returned to the school to find that from the 20% of randomly selected students, 47% had made significant progress.
Streaming, setting and subcultures
Pupil subcultures - group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns which are distinct to the mainstream culture.
- at school, subculture often emerge as a response to being labelled or a result of streaming.
Streaming - refers to placing students into classes by ability and then each stream is taught separately.
Setting - refers to placing to placing students into classes bt ability, but in relation to each subject so a student could be in a top set for months
Willis
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
Studied 12 w/c lads with a counter-school values
Got these values from their fathers, older brothers and other men from the community.
- values included: having a ‘laff’, a lack of respect for authority, messing around, etc.
The reason why the lads developed their counter-school subculture - had low expectations of their future employment opportunities - so for them school was a waste of time as they believed that working hard at school would not lead to a better future.
Lacey
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
Study of Hightown boys grammar school]
- participant + non-participant observations
Lacey developed 2 key concepts to explain why pupil subcultures are formed - differentiation + polarisation
- Differentiation - process through which teachers categorise pupils according to what they perceive the students ability and behaviour to be like
- Polarisation - process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving to one of the two opposite ‘poles’.
At Hightown BGS, boys were polarised into a pro-school and anti-school subculture. Therefore, according to Lacey, subcultures form as a result of differentiation (streaming) which leads to polarisation.
PRO-SCHOOL
- m/c
- pupils in top streams
- remain commited to school values
- gain status through academic success
ANTI - SCHOOL
- w/c
- pupils in lower streams
- placement in lower streams leads to low self-esteem
- feeling of failure forces them to look for status through means other than academic success - involves turning against school values
Hargreeves
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
Found that education system views w/c boys in lower sets as triple failures
- 11+ exams
- in bottom streams
- have been labelled as ‘worthless louts’
As a result, these boys formed a subculture in which high status went to those who broke the school rules.
Ball
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
[studied beachside comprehensive which abolished streaming in favour of mixed ability classes]
- decreased polarisation + anti-school subcultures
- however, teachers continued to differentiate and label students according to their social class background.
This shows that even without the influence of streaming, the class differences in achievement continue due to -ve labelling of pupils by teachers and the self-fulfilling prophecy it causes
therefore teacher labelling leads to the formation of s/c which them affects the students achievement
Woods
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
Identified that pupils can respond to labelling and streaming in 4 different ways:
- Ingratiation - being the teacher’s pet
- Ritualism - going through the motions of attending lessons, doing the lessons, staying out of trouble
- Retreatism - daydreaming + messing around
- Rebellion - rejection of school values
Furlong
[streaming, setting and subcultures]
Adds to woods argument
Pupils can respond to labelling and streaming in a variety of ways but aren’t committed to one particular response. They move from response to response depending on the subject and teacher.
e.g in maths, a student can be a rebel, while in geography s/he can be a ritualist
Therefore labelling and streaming leads to formation of subculture
Criticisms of subcultural theory
Deterministic - assumes that if a child is labelled, the self-fulfilling prophecy is unavoidable. However, it is possible for pupils to not be affected by labels.
It blames the teachers for labelling but doesn’t explain WHY they label students. Marxists argue that teachers work in a system that reproduces inequality - it is not their fault
Social class
A persons position in society Determined by: - birth - marriage - education - occupation - income - wealth - taste - cultural capital
Class identity
refers to a persons sense/perception of the class they belong to
- formed at home through socialisation by our parents even though its developed at home, it is still an internal factor
- becoming less important
Archer et al [class identity + the school]
Archer et al - pupils form their class identities outside the school, but these then interact with the values promoted by the school - causes conflict. which can affect the pupils’ achievement.
Habitus - refers to the learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular class.
m/c have power in society to define their habitus as superior and to impose it on the education system - as a result, the E.S promotes m/c values as the norm
- puts m/c pupils at an advantage within the education system as they possess the m/c habitus promoted by the school
Symbolic capital and violence
m/c students have the m/c habitus as they have been socialised into it at home - gain symbolic capital from their school
w/c students are denied symbolic capital. Instead, they receive symbolic violence which then leads to educational failure.
‘Nike’ identities
- w/c students thought that society + school looked down on them.
This symbolic violence led them to look for alternative ways to create self-worth and status by creating identities for themselves by investing in styles such as Nike.
Therefore wearing brands was a way of creating an identity.- girls adopted a hyper-heterosexual feminine style
However, this style led w/c students into conflict with the school as it was a breach of the schools uniform code.
they were also more likely to be labelled as rebels by the teachers
- girls adopted a hyper-heterosexual feminine style
Ingram
not al w/c students underachieve so Ingram wanted to study the relationship between class identity and educational success.
- 2 groups of w/c catholic boys from the same Belfast neighbourhood
- found that boys’ w/c identity linked to living in a w/c locality which was based on a close network of family + friends - strong w/c habitus
One group passed 11+ exams and went to grammar school. The grammar school has a strong m/c habitus of promoting educational achievement, while the secondary school didn’t.
- as a result, w/c boys who went to grammar school experienced tension between their w/c habitus and the m/c habitus of the school
Evans [class identity + self exclusion]
[studied a group of 21 w/c girls from south London comprehensive - studying A levels]
the girls were reluctant to apply to Oxbridge and the few who did apply felt a sense of not fitting in - this is because the w/c habitus makes them believe top uni’s are not for them. As the habitus is part of their identity it leads them to exclude themselves from elite uni’s.
Evans also found that girls had a strong attachment to their locality e.g only 4 had plans to move out
Marketisation of education
Introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988.
According to this policy, education is based on market principles which:
Increase competition between education suppliers (schools) to attract the most students and get the best results.
Gives customers (parents & students) product choice (choice between schools).
The product (schools) is regulated through Ofsted and league tables.
‘Bad’ product will be eliminated by the market as parents will not choose the ‘failing’ schools, these school will get less funding and eventually close down.
Education Reform act
Introduced other policies to marketise education:
- Open enrolment - parents can send their children to any school of their choice
- Formula funding - all schools get money per student
more students = more money - Competition - schools have to compete to attract more students
they do that through Ofsted reports + league tables - Exam league tables - percentage of pupils who gain 5A* - C grades - published annually
A-C Economy
[G+Y - criticism of marketisation]
Marketisation contributes to widening the gap in achievement between w/c and m/c students
- this happens through the A-C economy
A system through which schools allocate time, resources and effort towards those pupils they perceive as having the potential to get 5+ A* - C grades - tend to come from m/c backgrounds
Educational triage
Gilborn and Youdell Argue teachers carry out educational triage. They decide which students: - will get A*-C - will fail - borderline students
Thus high achieving schools ensure they continue to get excellent results as they make sure their students are the kind that do well - m/c
Gerwitz
[marketisation and selection]
one way schools attract m/c parents is through the home school contracts - if these are particularly ‘wordy’ and demanding of parents, some parents (w/c parents) are likely to be put off + not apply.
Ball
[marketisation and selection]
schools spend money on advertising themselves through expensive brochures and professionally designed websites in order to attract parents.
Bartlett
when children apply for a place in a secondary school, marketisation allows popular schools to:
- cream skim - select the high ability students who will get A* - C and offer them a place - tend to be m/c
- Silt shift - reject applications from students with learning difficulties or behavioural problems - as these are likely to underachieve - tend to be w/c
Educational achievement
Having achieved grades 4-9 in 8 GCSEs
- m/c children tend to do better in education - external and internal factors
Labelling - Keddie
[observed lessons in comprehensive schools where children were streamed]
Keddie - labelling can be applied not just to students, but to the knowledge, they are taught
argues knowledge can be labelled as high or low status.
- found that when teaching higher streams - taught high-status knowledge
- while when teaching lower streams - low-status knowledge
Most students in lower streams came from w/c backgrounds
Interactionalism
Sociological perspective
developed labelling theory
their work is based on studying the interactions between individuals, how they label each other and how the labels affect the behaviour of those who have been labelled
